goddessfarmer | Oh, well, that was a learning experience

So today I competed at the Hitching Post Farm Horse Trials at the Training level. Our dressage test was not great. It wasn't terrible, but I know we can do better. Mostly both of us need to be less tense. Our score of 38.6 put us in 11th, out of 16. Since I considered myself quite out of the ribbons, I wasn't feeling a whole lot of pressure going into cross country.

I rode the first 2 just like I wanted, and then Skip did something he's never done with me on course before - he Looked at a jump and stopped. It was just a log... OK, it was a log painted to look like an alligator head. I made it quite clear to him that I was much more scary than that alligator, and on the second approach he admitted that yes, it was a jump, and he would jump it. We cruised down the hill and I thought "well, there goes any chance at a ribbon, lets just take it easy and do the rest of this job right." The next jump happened like it wasn't even there, and we heaved up the steep and had a good run behind the indoor, where skip was clearly confused by not being pointed at the jumps directly in our path, but remarkably didn't look at the spectators or the turned out horses right next to the downhill before jump 5. I was a little concerned that we had slowed too much and he was going to stop there, but we kicked over and went on up the alley between the fields. I ran my line to the next narrow rolltop, a mate to the previous, perfectly, and he continued to not spook at things I thought might be spooky. We still crawled over that one, my bad, not enough leg. Right turn, down a steep hill, across the field, up again, left at the crest to the big tires. Uh, oh. He didn't like those tires, but this time I was prepared. He tried to weasel out, but I held him straight and kept kicking. I think there was some trot in there, but no refusal. Land off that, sharp right to the picture frame (perfect), rollback left and gallop on down to the water. Again, perfect, but a little slow coming out into the right hand loop to a decent log. Up the hill, down the hill, left then rollback right to the ditch. 5 strides, WOA! sharp left, this one is steep enough that I trotted down re-balanced and kicked on to the trakaner (log with ditch under). No wasted effort there, sharp left, up over the little logs, up the steep, left turn balance then forward to the ramp. He does those ramps so nicely when I stay out of his way. Gallop straight on gentle slope down, he jumped the brook, but I was ready, a little further then balance before the corner (A jump sort of like a fan, being not wide at one end, and very wide at the other, we jump as close to the point as possible) which he flies over. I'm ready on landing for the right u-turn to the old log, which we didn't meet perfectly, then look left for another U-turn to the small but jacked up tires. I kept him coming through the finish flags, but he was ready for it to be over.

We walked slowly to stadium jumping, and he was still blowing a bit when we got there. The rider before us was in the ring, so when she was done, we had to go in. I had managed to catch my breath, which was a good thing, because I could feel that I had a tired horse under me as we got started on our round. It was a very nicely flowing course, with easy turns and sane distances. I had to ride every jump though, because he got flat between them and I had to keep picking him back up. He made a valiant effort to keep his feet from touching anything, and we came away clean. Best thing we'd done all day as far as scoring goes.

I cooled down Skip and packed up, with no intention of sticking around for scores. Just as I was ready to leave, they announced the results... and I was very surprised to hear my name. Ok, it was 8th. But hey, a ribbon (brown). It turned out that there were both plenty of problems on cross country, and a number of people had rails down in stadium jumping. That ribbon is for perseverance, for continuing to ride well just for me and Skippy, even after having made mistakes. I am proud of what I did today, even if it wasn't perfect.